Beneath the Stars
by CaptainDeryn
Summary: The Eternal Empire has wreaked havoc on the galaxy. It tore Captain Emeldir Deryn away from Rielay Taqq without warning. Four years later she is still trying to grapple with her new reality. Everyone else has given up, but she cannot accept his death. When she drives herself to the brink she is forced to acknowledge what has happened as she realizes she was not the only one hurt.


**A/N: This takes place during the Time Skip at the start of KotFE. Light spoilers for that. Another brief note, Emeldir is not actually Rielay's kid, its a nickname she gives him (that will be introduced in later stories, but I might as well toss it here.)**

 **Warnings: This is dark. It deals with the loss of a loved one, and the grief that follows it. They way Rielay handles it is not good. Nothing explicit here, but if you don't think it would be good for you to read it, then please, don't.**

 **Finally, thanks to anyone who reads this, hope you enjoy.**

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The sharp sting of loss was nothing new to Rielay Taqq. She had learned to take it in stride a long time ago, she had needed to for her line of work. Holes left by the pain would fill in with time until they could be pushed to the back of her mind. Zav, Lyn...they were all just distant points of pain she had worked through.

The pain of losing her fellow captain Emeldir Deryn on a failed mission should have faded four years ago. When she had heard the news it should have been agonizing for only a week or two, then it slowly should have dulled with the passage of time. By now it should have stopped digging into her mind like a sharp needle. _Four years_ should have been long enough.

It wasn't though, it would never be long enough for her to forget the sudden breaking off of his com signal, the string of swears that were the last words she had heard from someone that might as well have been her own blood family.

Those hours spent on the bridge of the _Promise_ in the Core Worlds while he was deep in Wild Space, easing the anxiety of fighting alone felt like they would never fade from behind her closed eyelids. The aftermath of That Mission, Risha's frantic attempts at reconnecting contact, argueing with the rest of Emeldir's crew to go back and find him even in the wreckage of a burned corpse of a star fighter would never stop haunting her.

The crack of her own headset hitting the opposite wall, her own desperate attempts to reconnect to his com signal on her end still swirled around her like shadows.

She should have given up a long time ago, according to everyone around her. Emeldir's crew had disbanded over a year ago, selling his beloved ship the _Phoenix_ off to stars knows who. The ship that she had found for him, that they had worked to fix together. The ship that had become just as much a home to him as the _Promise_ had become to Rielay.

 _Kriff_ , even Risha had stepped away after being forced to stop searching as the tensions between the Eternal Empire and the rest of the galaxy mounted. Emeldir's wife had given up, why did she even still bother with her search anymore?

The answer was easy, he couldn't be dead. Force blindness be damned, .know. He had survived worse, more insurmountable odds and come out alright. That day on Darth Marr's ship shouldn't have been any different.

 _But the ship blew clean in half there's no way._

Rielay ran a hand over her good eye, trying to rub away the heaviness of sleepness night after sleepless night and the burn of staring at a datapad for hours upon hours. She blinked blankly down at the datapad in front of her, a contract claiming he had information on Emeldir's possible location on Hoth. That wasn't possible, he hated Hoth.

They had been to Hoth. It was where he had earned the scars across his face, gone missing for hours. She thought he had been gone then. They had found him and he had survived.

No matter how many times she reread it there was nothing that made it any different than all the other failed leads. There was _nothing_.

Glass shattered against the wall of the bridge, spreading across the floor as she hurled the datapad as hard as she could against the durasteel.

 _Four years and she should have found_ something.  
Her flesh hand ran across her eye again, brushing away the tears that had gathered in her eyes as quickly as the realization that Captain Deryn, kid, _her_ kid, was gone. Suddenly she stood, pacing a small circle around the bridge, clenching and unclenching her cybernetic hand until the metal joints creaked.

If she hadn't been on Corellia when he had decided to leave she could have gone with him. Been an extra gun. Gone down with him for kriff's sake.

If she had never dragged him onto the _Promise_ in the first place he'd be back on Coruscant, taking the Galactic Senate and the galaxy by storm instead of...of...nonono _no_.

Pain blossomed up the nerve sensors all through her cybernetic arm as she slammed her fist into the wall. Again and again she hit the metal, gritting her teeth against the jarring pain that cleared her thoughts and pushed everything else away. When even that failed like _everything else had_ she brought her other hand back, stumbling back and swearing through gasping, violent sobs that had pounced upon her without warning as the durasteel tore at the delicate skin of her knuckles.

Like a rock she dropped to the floor, bits and pieces of shattered glass digging into her knees as she cradled her hands to her chest and let out another tortured, swearing sob. _Gone Gone Gone_. Just like everything else over the years. He was her kid, her family.

She dropped her head into her hands, knotting her fingers in the tangled curls falling in front of her face.

"Rielay?" Her sobs stalled in a surprised hiccup as Hugo called her name. Not for the first time she had forgotten she wasn't alone on the ship. She might as well have been. She had barely seen her husband over the past...she didn't even know. Even on the same ship they might as well have been planets away from each other.

"It's the middle of the-" His voice was rumbled by sleep until he came to her, she heard his footsteps halt and his sigh even though she didn't look up. "Damnit Rie, what did you do?"

Glass tinkled as it was shifted out of the way and Hugo's hands were gentle as he disentangled her hands from her hair, pushing the tangled mess from her damp cheeks. She watched him with a numb stare as he frowned at the damage she had done to her hands. Her knuckles were scraped and bloody, the finer joints of her cybernetic hand twisted and crushed. That explained why she had stopped feeling pain.

She barely noticed when Hugo slipped his arms under hers with the same silent gentleness, bringing her to her feet. Her sigh was exhausted and shaky, hitching with the threat of new tears. "I want him back." She saw Hugo's eyes squeeze shut before she was pulled tightly against him. "He was family." His next breath was sharp and it hit her with sudden clarity that this was just as hard for him as it was for her. He had known Emeldir just as she had. They had all been a family. She buried her head against his chest, wrapping her arms tightly around him.

"I know you do, we both want him back." Hugo mumbled into her hair. His sigh was the most weary she felt she had ever heard him. "But I can't let you do this to yourself anymore."

Rielay shook her head slightly, letting out another whimper from behind clenched teeth. Giving up felt so _wrong_. "I can't stop looking."

There was a pause as Hugo rubbed a hand up and down her arm, contemplative. "Let's go back to Corellia." He ventured finally. "Let's go home."

"But…" She protested, her voice tapering off. "I…" With an effort she pulled away from him, gripping the edge of the navcomputer as she shakily programmed Corellia's coordinates in. "Home." She repeated, drifting back into the darkness of her thoughts.

Even as she allowed herself to be led from the bridge back to their quarters the strange numbness that had taken her over remained and as she lay curled up next to Hugo. As she stared at the wall opposite her she could seem to find the deep rooted, unbridled emotion that had taken hold of her not long ago. It was as if she was empty now. It was an odd comfort, to feel nothing at all as exhaustion pulled her under and into a black, dreamless sleep.

The pain of loss was nothing new to her. By now it was an old friend. Some things never changed.

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 **Thanks again for anyone who reads this. For anyone who would like to know, chapter three of _Thieving_ will probably be up soon. I just really wanted to write this. **

**-CaptainDeryn**


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